School starts after Labor Day better for business

Every year around this time, as the days gradually get shorter and parents find themselves shopping for backpacks instead of bathing suits, many people find themselves asking: Where did the summer go?

It's usually a rhetorical question posed by someone reflecting on all the festivals and fireworks, boating and back yard barbecues that make the summer seem to slip by so fast.

But in recent years, as Northern Michigan has seen its bread-and-butter peak summer tourist season gradually ebb from eight to six or fewer weeks, more and more people are beginning to really wonder: Where did the summer go?

A group of Michigan lawmakers supported by the tourism industry thinks they know exactly where summer went: Back to school.

No tumbleweeds yet, but…

Labor Day weekend, which for years marked the end of summer, is still a week away, yet there's already noticeably fewer people in the area.

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At mid-afternoon Thursday, two or three parking spaces were routinely available on each block in Petoskey Gaslight Shopping District. The public parking lots throughout the downtown were nowhere near capacity. Even with the Emmet-Charlevoix County Fair going on this week, turning left from Charlevoix Avenue onto Mitchell Street can almost always be accomplished in one light change.

In Charlevoix, police chief Dennis Halverson gauges traffic by how far back the cars are stopped on U.S. 31 when the drawbridge opens. He said in July, mid-day bridge openings often back traffic up to M-66. This week, he said, it's only been five or six blocks.

Merchants and innkeepers have already noticed the end-of-season slide.

Dudley Marvin, president of Stafford's Hospitality, which operates well-known Northern Michigan tourist destinations such as the Bay View Inn, Perry Hotel and The Pier restaurant, said business started to noticeably drop off beginning Monday - two full weeks before Labor Day.

School bells ringing

Many in the tourism industry say they know exactly what's been munching away at their precious summer season: A trend among many Michigan school districts - especially downstate - to start school in late August.

Tourism officials say that once school starts, the last thing on the minds of families is taking a trip up north. And that adds up to millions of dollars in lost revenue, both for the industry and the already cash-strapped state coffers.

In late June, with little fanfare, a dozen members of the Michigan House of Representative introduced their answer to the shrinking summer problem. If enacted, House Bill 6058 would simply require that the governing board of any public school "… shall ensure that the district's or public school academy's school year does not begin before Labor Day."

But resurrecting two weeks of summer might not be that simple.

If the proposal sounds familiar, that's because in 1999 many of the same lawmakers tried to unsuccessfully enact a nearly identical bill.

Facing staunch opposition from teacher's unions and other education groups, supporters of the bill were unable to muster enough support in the legislature and had to settle for a compromise that required schools to not be in session on the Friday before Labor Day.

The logic behind the extra day off is to give tourism a boost by giving families an opportunity for a last-hurrah four-day weekend.

It appears to have helped some.

In a recent news release, AAA Michigan officials said, "While leisure travel trends are rebounding, during the upcoming Labor Day weekend two-thirds of travelers (67 percent) will stay in Michigan (unchanged from 2003), and the average trip length will be four days - a trend that has continued since the state-mandated Friday no-school 'holiday' was enacted in 1999."

What's to oppose?

In the past, the primary opposition to the bill came from education groups who said the measure was taking local control away from school districts - especially in the face of increasing instructional time requirements by the state.

Even proponents of the bill agree that it's generally best to keep as much local control within the districts as possible.

Petoskey schools superintendent John Jeffrey said the bill would probably mean little change to most Northern Michigan school districts, because most of them already start school after Labor Day in deference to the local economy.

Only two schools out of 11 in the Char-Em Intermediate School District are starting classes before Labor Day. Both Boyne Falls schools and Concord Academy in Petoskey will start school on Tuesday, Aug. 31.

Charlevoix-Emmet Intermediate School District Superintendent Mark Eckhardt said he'd support such a law if proponents could show the numbers supporting it.

"If it would make a difference for Northern Michigan, I'd be all for it," Eckhardt said.